I'll let you know. I'll be getting the seeds today since there was some screwup over at HH, though they shipped things out as soon as it was brought to their attention, kudos. I eat a lot of cumin in my food too, I'm always buying more at the store, haven't made any drink 'stuff' with it though. Speaking of artwork, I stopped by a hardware store yesterday to look at their plants and they had, basically, the entire Dr. Earth line over there, along with an assortment of black gold stuff. It was all pretty overpriced, but still comforting to see those types of products in this area. I grabbed some seed 'taters and this cool plant Junior Walker Catmint. The leaves smell minty, though not overpowering, and the flowers remind me some of lavender.
What do you think of Sluggo Coot? That's what I use as we have lots of real small slugs as well as snails.
Cont from soil mix thread. They were from seed, I got them from the same guy in Tenn. Still only have their cotyledons, as I've only sown them last week. I planted a bunch of raddish/turnip stuff a few weeks ago and they're loving this weather. I'm going to dig in a lot of sand and see if I can't get some fat carrots this year, too. So, for my tomatoes, I threw equal parts Dolomite Lime, Ag. Lime, and Gypsum into a coffee can and then put 2 handfuls into each of my holes I prepared outside that were about 3-4gallons in size. I amended only with about a half shovel or so of compost.
Finally got to spend a little time in the veggie garden this morning. I pulled back the leaf mulch, spread a thin layer of compost mix on, and put the mulch back. Then I sprinkled a little on top of the mulch. We're supposed to have a rainy week coming up so it should help kick things in gear. This is what I mixed up in the garden cart with a cement hoe. I used it on four, 4x12 garden beds. 4 cu ft lobster compost 32 qt worm castings 4 qt alfalfa meal 4 qt neem cake 4 qt kelp meal 2 qt crab shell It'll be a couple weeks yet before I plant anything at all I believe. With as much snow as we had just a couple weeks ago I'm pretty happy I was able to get this done before the rain started. I saw lots of worms too, especially around the stumps left from last season. That was a pleasant surprise!
I am setting up a new garden on a lawn (and weeds, mint etc) in the NE. Would you recommend doing anything to the lawn or just laying a bed right on top? I have never lived anywhere where weeding is a bigger garden chore than watering!
Kaylx That's what I would suggest doing - go up about 24" and fill to about 18" with a good soil mix. That will leave you room for top-dressing and mulching and such. Keep it simple...
Coot I've been holding onto this old post for a while. I was saving it for myself but now my question is more for my mother although she doesn't know lol. She mentioned miracle grow the other day and I've heard enough. I'm going to try to get her to follow my direction for a year and see how it goes. The link below is to a post you made previously about the garden supplies you purchase every year. Can you go into a bit about how you use each in your outside garden? Top dress, teas, whatever. Even if she doesn't take my advice I'll need it next year for myself. http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1299862-no-till-gardening.html/page-246#entry21172517 And why don't you use fish meal in your soil mix if you use it outside? I'm getting aggravated with my parents. They live on a couple acres with access to everything they need for top notch compost and they still buy fucking miracle grow. I mean they even have a flock of 20+ chickens!!! Solo
Things suck out here still, either it's freezing at night or it rains all day. Between fixing my truck, fixing the house and getting the garden ready there aren't enough nice days this month to get it all done.
If you look closely you can see some grass sticking up through my mulch. I need to weed my garden. It looks like it'll take me about 20 minutes to pull those.
I've already got peas in the ground and asparagus is in there too. I've got lettuce, arugula and strawberries in the cold frame. This last weekend I planted seeds of cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts, butternut and acorn squash. I also dropped 4 variety of tomatoes: Jolly Elf, Sakura Red, Monica and Big Beef. So about mid May I'll get serious with the planting.
Cool on Ca sources. I usually end up doing a top dress of gypsum in July or so. They are real Ca hogs and not much happening till it cools off some (Toms won't set fruit when night time temps go above 72 or 74*), by then the gypsum is available. They bear till a killing frost. Wet
That pic doesn't surprise me at all. Those suckers get huge. Mine got to over 8' and would have been taller if the trellis had been higher. Plan on this when you do your trellis. Wet
Lookin good in here folks! Been a while. Time to dust off the gardening equipment and get back in it. Doubled the size of my garden this year and adding a bunch of flowers to the mix to keep my pollinators happy, and some sunflowers to encourage some birds to stick around and help with the grasshopper problem I had last year. Hope everyone is well. New year, new leaf, new me!
Not much man, workin like a fool! More than ready for gardening season to begin. I got to use some of my first ever compost pile this past week, was a great feeling. How you been doin?